1992 - Palomar Amateur Radio Club

SEP'92
Something is WRONG with the old .73
4-bay! Jim Hall went along and made
some adjustments on his repeater.
(8-?) John-WB6IQS assembled a
corner reflector according to his
design from junk parts with Orlando­
N6QVW helping with the assembling
and doing the welding of the
aluminum. Orlando also machined a
reflector bracket for one of the 2m
collinears which will soon be placed
into operation.
(8-9) John worked on the 146.73
repeater "hang-up" problems.
(8-12) John and Stan checked
out the new 2m collinear for the
146.730 repeater and adjusted the
reflecter brackets made by Orlando­
N6QVW for proper fit on the tapered
mast. The reflector will change the
6db collinear to almost 9db and give
us a broader patter than we now have
with the corner reflector. We have
two corner reflectors which are
slated for other projects in the
nea r future.
The club can always use extra
help at the repeater site and on
special projects which can be used
at the repeater site or in
conjuction with the site. If you
can't find the time to go up with us
you might want to put together
something (ie•• repeater. antennas.
special patch or link) at your home
work bench under the supervision of
our repeater site technicians:
WB6IQS. WB6FMr. &KC6KCQ. Others who
have worked at the site are Art­
KC6UQH and Larry-AB6LY (X-KC6PEN).
John is the repeater site technical
chairman.
We can always use tower
climbers, trucks. carpenters. block
layers. tree trimmers. "grunts" ,
etc. If you have some skill that you
think might be of interest to us,
please give Stan-W9FQN. repeater
site chairman a call.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
... . ..a.......
PARC welcomes letters to the
editor which are of GENERAL interest
to its membership but reserves the
right to print or edit submissions.
---de Bill Denton, NG6Z--­
The following are examples of
useless words, expressions, phrases.
and poor practices. (at least in my
opinion), that are often heard on
many of the local VHF and UFH
repeaters, (and sometimes on HF
also):
l)This is UR2BAD. "for 10": The "for
10" is obviously to differentiate
from all of the other reasons
requiring the announcement of the
operator's call sign, whatever those
reasons might be. (giving ur call is
ur "ID"-Ed)
2)N6XYZ this is UR2BAD. -pause-­
"Nothing heard. UR2BAD clear." Now
everyone who happened to be
listening during this transmission
is thankful to UR2BAD for letting
them know that "nothing was heard"
and LlR2BAD is clear. ·No response"
is in the same category. Nothing
heard or no response to a call is
obvious to anyone listening after
only a few moments.
3)The words "there" and "here"
inserted frequently in most all
sentences transmitted by a station.
These two words. . usually and
nothing to the meaning of the
transmission. .
4}Use of the royal "WE" or the
plural ·we" for I or me. ·We" are
using a Kenwood 123 "here". "We"
have been a Ham for ten years.
"here". Own your transmissions. If
you mean "I", use "I". The use of
"we" tends to put distance between
the operator and his/her
transmissions.
5)N6XYZ this is UR2BAO, "I'll be
clear after your final". (1 resisted
the impulse to add another "there"
after the word final). The
transmitting station was clear after
giving the call sign UR28AD for the
last time during the contact.
6)"N6XYZ. N6AAA. N6AAB. N6AAC.
N6AAO. uhhhhh, Joe I forgot your
call. sorry, uhhhhh anyway UR2BAD
clear". A roll call of everyone on
the repeater. or involved in the
roundtable. is not required when
Signing off, or any other time
either. It's particularly
aggravating when the signing station
cannot remember all of the call
signs and takes forever trying to
recall them, while everyone else
waits. Your own call sign is all
that is required (by the FCC). Look
it up.
7) Use of the word "break" when
desiring to enter, join. or
interrupt a conversation. A call
sign is sufficient and much more
friendly. "Break" almost carries
some amount of urgency or time
dependent requirement. For those
instances. of course. by all means
use "break", and for life
threatening situations "break-break"
is appropriate. But for casual
conversation. announcing one's call
sign, indicating a wish to join in,
is much more pleasant to this
operator. What do you think?
8)Announcing everyone's call sign at
each turnover of the conversation,
again particularly offensive when
there is a long list. Remember
folks, your call must be given every
ten minutes during the contact and
at the conclusion of the contact.
More frequently is not a big deal,
but at each over?
9)Use of the "Q" signals in phone
operation. Many times the plain
English word has fewer syllables. A
speCific. frequent error example:
"I'm at my home QTH". QTH is
location. wherever you might be at
the time. QTH adds nothing to the
word home. In some cases QTH alone
has been heard as meaning horne. QTH
and home are not aynonymous. The
expression. "I'm at my QTH" does not
necessarily mean you are at home. A
Ham operator is always at his/her
QTH, wherever that may be.
10llong winded operators during the
morning and afternoon rush hours.
Sometimes these are fixed stations.
capable of using a simplex mode to
ragchew. Then there is the operator
who acknowledges an interrupting
station, during rush hours. and says
"breaking station. you're
acknowledged. Just a minute and I'll
Pg. 8 EXEC MrS THUR. SEP 10th, 1930Hr, WA6YOO QTH SCOPE-SEP'92